A school transport provider in Co Limerick has withdrawn from the scheme operated by Bus \u00c9ireann because of “astronomical” fuel prices.<\/p>\n
Paudie Kenneally of Kenneally Coach Hire took to social media to confirm that his buses will not be operating for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n
Mr Kenneally, whose family business in Newcastle West has been providing school transport for over 40 years, said the contract with Bus \u00c9ireann was no longer viable.<\/p>\n
“Diesel has gone up 40 cent a litre and I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I can\u2019t take money out of savings to pay diesel.”<\/p>\n
Mr Kenneally said he attended the blockade of the fuel depot at Foynes Port last week, to show his support for the protesters.<\/p>\n
Local bus operators stepped in to provide hundreds of students in Co Limerick with transport to and from school this week, after Kenneally Coach Hire withdrew services.<\/p>\n
Bus \u00c9ireann has confirmed that there has been no change to the level at which operators withdraw from School Transport Scheme contracts for their own commercial or operational reasons.<\/p>\n
“Contract compliance remains very high, and we have not seen any noticeable change in this since March,” the bus company said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“Where an operator does withdraw, Bus \u00c9ireann works to ensure continuity of service for students and families, and that all affected routes continue to operate as normal.”<\/p>\n
Bus \u00c9ireann operates the School Transport Scheme on behalf of the Department of Education and Youth.<\/p>\n
The scheme provides transport for over 181,000 pupils daily to and from school and includes the provision of transport for over 24,000 children with additional needs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A school transport provider in Co Limerick has withdrawn from the scheme operated by Bus \u00c9ireann because of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-402008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}